Third Parties
by craple
Summary: Ren knew that he shouldn't have scored this date with his ex-teacher—in a ramen shop of all places—but why did two of her former students and  Yamato were tagging along as well?


**Title:** Third Parties

**Fandom:** Gokusen

**Rating:** PG-15/T (_for __language __& __incoherent __thoughts_)

**Genre:** Humor, Friendship

**Characters:** Mainly Yamaguchi "Yankumi" Kumiko, Sawada Shin, Odagiri Ryu, Kazama Ren, Ogata Yamato, and Teruo "Kuma" Kumai, plus some other characters.

**Summary:** Ren knew that he shouldn't have scored this date with his ex-teacher—in a ramen shop of all places—but why did two of her former students and Yamato were tagging along as well?

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Gokusen or any involved materials.

**Warning:** Too much grammatical mistakes, horrible puns and word usage that could bring you to tears; the spellings might be the only thing that I could be proud of. There are also some basic Japanese words that most of you might understand already, and if you're easily offended and don't really like harsh languages, then I guess you could take a step back?

* * *

><p>For Kumai Teruo, nicknamed "Kuma" by his friends, his one and only teacher, and his beloved family, that day was just like any other of his usual and boring common days—in which he woke up in the morning, preparing breakfast for his wife and siblings, going downtown to buy some groceries with his bike, and lastly, opening his father's ramen shop and started serving the guests with various of ramen and <em>gyoza<em>—that was how things were _supposed_ to happen.

But then, both fate and karma could be total bitches to him at times, and there's really nothing he could do to change things that had already happened, or better, to at least change _this_ kind of extremely awkward and super tense atmosphere that were enveloping the entire room. Well, maybe he shouldn't blame himself too much, because it wasn't exactly his fault that this… inappropriately _somehow_ forbidden, intimate scene was truly happening inside of his father's sacred ramen shop, right in front of the guests' and his own pair of eyes.

They were all in a state of pure unadulterated shock that their bodies had completely frozen over into statues—all of the people that were present in that very same room, at that very same time. Others might said that they were exaggerating, because what they had witnessed inside the shop was nothing but uncommon; just a scene where a handsome young brunette had _accidentally_ landed his lips on top of the lips of a beautiful woman that looked _definitely_ older than him, and apparently, was his former teacher back when he was still in high school.

Even though things were different now that they were no longer teacher-and-student, what made this scene _so fucking horrible_ was the fact that the other guests inside that room, were all her former students from three different all-boys-academies; Shirokin Academy, Kurogin Academy, and Akadou Academy.

Not so unexpectedly a few minutes later, one of the males, someone who sat at the back nearby the door with dark orange hair clad in blue t-shirt and black vest jumped over the table and pushed the door open, running away like mad while screaming "My teacher's going to kill me!" over and over again between breaths. An eerie silence filled the room. And then—

"I'm going to get _killed_!"

"Someone, call the _okami_!"

"Yankumi's going on a rampage!"

"Kumai-san, run away!"

Various shouts came from the former students that started running away one by one, crowding the door as they fought each other to come out of the shop first. Kuma grabbed his younger siblings, took his wife hands', before exiting through the back door. Unfortunately, there were three other males that couldn't get their feet to move—possibly because of guilt and sense of responsibility—or maybe just because of fear. One of them was tall, with black hair and white highlights, half-standing half-sitting a few meters behind the brunette with expression of that of a pure shock, while the other one also had messy black hair but with blond highlights, who stood very still with two bowls of ramen in his hands, three-steps away beside the female teacher.

It was then that they noticed that the brunette had one of his hands on her chest. The atmosphere suddenly gotten colder, time seemed to freeze and none of them dared to make the first move.

A few minutes later, an ambulance arrived in front of the ramen shop as a request from a reporter named Tsuchiyama and brought out two badly-beaten young men into the ambulance, and toward the hospital, while the last man inside the shop was still dodging and defending himself from his teacher's merciless attack, hopping from one table onto the other, until he finally decided to jump over the already-broken window (fortunately, Yankumi was rich enough to pay up for the broken furniture and stuff, since Kuma and the Oedo clan are in good terms with each other, and he himself didn't really mind it all that much).

Now, let us went back twenty-eight hours before this disaster occurred, shall we?

* * *

><p>Kazama Ren had never been one to get depressed over some small or big problems so easily. Of course, he used to give up a lot once he's done something and it didn't work as well as he thought it would be, but since he met his former homeroom teacher that totally didn't act like one, and became what she called as "true friends" with his classmates, especially his long-time rival, Ogata Yamato, he had changed into a different and a better person. Not exactly "different", but at least he's better and much more mature than he used to.<p>

Even after graduation, he decided to straighten up for the sake of his beloved sister and worked hard on the path he had chosen for himself; became a part-timer and all, although he had accidentally became a messenger for a dangerous yakuza clan, Ren kept looking forward and lived his life with pride and as much happiness that he could get, since he didn't really want to worry his sister, friends, and especially that idiotic teacher. No matter how many times he told her to stop worrying about him and start worrying about her own loveless life filled with delinquents as students, she insisted that she had the right to worry about him as his former teacher and a parent.

She told him that when they were hanging around in Kumai-san's shop as usual, with Yamato and the others, and Ren just laughed, telling her that she couldn't be a parent when she herself hadn't married or having a lover in this case, but actually felt warmth spreading inside his chest. He knew that Yamato and the others felt the same, even Kuma, because they also laughed happily along with him, and it didn't feel so bad to have this kind of friendly atmosphere once in a while with a teacher. Both Kamiya and Honjo suggested that she should go to the beauty parlor more often, even Kuraki and Ichimura offered to accompany and help her with hair styles, make-ups, and more fashionable clothes other than jerseys and formal common teachers' clothing.

They were extremely shocked at the results though, that even _the_ goofy and straight-looked-alike person like _Yankumi_ could be really pretty when she wanted to; hell, they even _looked_ at her legs and _butt_ at the same time, which was something they would never, _ever_ told anyone about. And then, it was something like a promise between men, that to avoid any further _damages_ to their healthy brain—because really, who would, in their _right fucking mind_, be attracted to Yamaguchi Kumiko?—they decided to stop helping her with the womanly stuff and let her be the usual old-fashioned Yankumi.

Now though, it was different for Ren, and once again, he needed to ask a favor from his former teacher, who was currently teaching his juniors in the Akadou Academy. He had been fighting himself as of whether to ask her or not, but he didn't really have a lot of choices, since going to an all-boys-academy for a high school meant having less girls as friends.

The problem was, three days ago, a friend of his late-parents came to visit him and his sister. He was one of the doctors that worked inside the hospital that the school's doctor own, and was one of not-so-many people that Ren respected, for he also helped saving his life after that incident with Goda. Both he and his sister welcomed him into their house warmly, but the guy _just_ had to totally ruin the warm and friendly atmosphere the Kazamas had given him by asking Kaoruko to marry his son, a bright ace-student in Tokyo's University. The son then came through the door, posing like a super-model-star with mocking eyes that were looking straight at Ren, and he _just_ had to punch them both. Not so unexpectedly, his sister was the first one to land a strong fist at the son's face though, and he was oddly proud yet terrified about it.

"Hah! Well, there's no way that _you_," he shouted loudly outside the door, pointing a finger rudely at his face. "—will _ever_ get a girlfriend yourself! This is a big opportunity for both you and your sister, and yet, for _you_," his finger moved from Ren to Kaoru, who was standing with arms-crossed beside him. "To reject me, is just simply unbeli—"before he could finished his sentence, his sister ran back into the house as they cursed and spat at each other, picked up one of their kitchen tables, kicking Ren out of her way and threw it square at his face (it was a sight that Ren never _wished_ to witness in his entire life, and the father of the guy had questioningly disappeared from their sights).

"Don't you ever, _ever_ mock my brother! He's ten times, no, _a hundred times_ more handsome than your _stinking pig face_—"she shouted back furiously, so loud that the neighborhood within two miles away could clearly hear them, and it somehow made him proud that his sister stood out for him like that. The real problem was what she said next though; and his smiles were completely wiped out of his face in a flash of light. "—and I bet that he could get a girlfriend within _three days_ from now!"

And with that, the man smirked cruelly at them, showing off some of his broken teeth, split lips and a bloody twisted nose, challenging them that if Ren couldn't get a girlfriend within three days at all, then Kaoru had to marry him and moved into their house instead of his brother. Before he could stop his sister from sacrificing her life that was much more precious than his own, she confidently accepted his challenge, looking at him with fire and passion in her eyes as if to say that it was an easy task, and Ren suddenly had the urge to bang his forehead on the nearest wall repeatedly to get out of this dream.

_How could she be so stupid?_ He asked himself a billion of times as he tried to sleep that night, scratching his head furiously in frustration and decided to ask Kamiya about it. He was, in fact, an expert on girls and dating compared to all of his friends back in high school, and since he's the only one with girlfriend after all this time, calling him was the best and most rational thing that he could think of.

They met up at Kuma's ramen shop the next day, and another four of his closest friends had somehow gotten involved with their conversations before he knew it (since when did he invite them again? Or was it Kamiya who made the calls; he wasn't sure).

"So basically, this is a bet with Ren's beautiful onee-sama's life on the line," Honjo spoke up, nodding his head a couple of times as if he understood everything with a serious expression plastered on his face. He put his chin between his thumb and index finger and tilted his head; a wide Cheshire cat's grin broke from his lips as he looked at his overly-frustrated friend, eyes gleaming in both excitement and something that akin with happiness that somehow got on Ren's nerves. "Let's call Kamiyan's Haruka-chan and ask her to set up another _goukon_ for us today! That way, not just Ren, we could also get girlfriends on our own too!" the grin on his face got wider than possible, earning some nods in approval from four of his friends except from Kamiya himself.

"Uhh, that's a good idea and all guys but, sorry; I can't really help you with _that_ matter." All heads turned to look at him immediately, giving him a long 'ehhh' and sad, questioning faces and childish pouts. Kamiya scratched the back of his head and shifted uncomfortable on his seat next to Kuraki, rubbing his forehead to ease a headache that was sure to come and cleared his throat rather awkwardly that the others frowned confusedly at him.

"Is there something wrong?" asked Yamato, who hadn't spoken a single word since the time they entered the shop. Kamiya bowed his head down slightly and forced a laugh and a fake smile on his face.

"Well, the truth is, we had a fight two days ago and..." biting his lips nervously, Kamiya refused to look at his friends' eyes and laughed half-heartedly, taking a long deep breath before leaning back and shook his head. "She kicked me out." An uncomfortable silence filled the atmosphere when he finished, and low murmurs of 'sorry' could be heard from the others. Yamato frowned deeper and put his elbow on the table, leaning his cheek on his hands and looked outside the window with a thoughtful expression on his face.

A long heavy sigh escaped from Ren's parted lips as he slumped on his chair and bang his head on the table, mumbling 'what should I do's repeatedly in depression. Kuraki, who had been texting with Sakura, a friend of his that moved to Hokkaido, tilted his head slightly and shouted "AAHH!" loudly, standing up from his seat and ran around the table and stopped behind Ren, putting both of his hands on his shoulders and pulled him into a sitting position forcefully.

"Ren, Ren! I know what we should do! How about asking someone to pretend to be your girlfriend!" he said happily, his eyes gleamed and voice filled with excitement as he jumped up and down behind him, gripping his shoulders tightly that he winced.

"Ah! That's right! That will do, right?" Honjo immediately agreed and stood up from his seat, followed shortly by the equally excited Kamiya and Ichimura. Yamato shifted his gaze from the window to them lazily, shrugging his shoulder as he looked at Ren straight in his eyes.

"What do you say?" he asked in his usual low voice, the others also looked at him expectantly as Ren himself looked deep in thought. He bit his lower lip harder than necessary and shoved his soft brown hair back, ruffling his hair before taking a deep breath and looked from left to right between his friends with eyes filled with desperation.

"You guys have someone in mind?"

* * *

><p>Various sounds of uncontrollable laughter, furniture breaking apart, barking of the dogs, beautiful songs sung in horrible voices, and the owner of the restaurant's furious shouts went in and out of Odagiri Ryu's ears in quick pace, giving him an extremely terrible headache and hard times on moving the bodies of his colleague teachers that passed out after getting at least thirty bottles of sake each, throwing two of them from the floor and onto his back and brought them out carefully into the head-teacher's pick-up car that was parked in front of the store's sliding door. After apologizing for, like, the fourteenth times to the store's owner for causing troubles that night, Ryu drove the car and brought them all into their respective house, explaining the details to the wives and husbands and even their children, before going straight back to his apartment and slammed his body against the bed without turning the lights on. He was exhausted and far too tired to change his clothes that smelled like smoke and alcohols from the party—even though he <em>never<em> smoke and didn't get the chance to pour a single bottle of sake into his cup or even have a drop of the liquor into his mouth—he didn't plan to move from his comfortable spot on the bed anytime soon; going as far as ignoring the loud ringing of his cell phone and the knocks on the door that didn't stop for about the whole twenty-two seconds or so. Grabbing his pillow angrily, Ryu held it against his head, kneading the edges to cover both of his ears and forced himself to sleep, though it didn't help much as he got off the bed later on and walked to the door grumpily.

He put one of his hands on the wall, exploring the flat surface with his palms in order to find the light switch and flicked it with his finger when he found it, mumbling "Coming, coming" and cursed under his breaths as he grabbed the door handle and turned it, pushing the door open to find two of his best friends from high school, Hyuuga and Tsuchi, grinning widely in front of him and suddenly shoved two pieces of paper the moment they saw his face. They started talking so fast that he thought his head was going to explode, and he could barely get what they were saying (something about "Yankumi", "reunion", "goukon", and then "back to high school" and "girlfriends" and he stopped trying after that) since they spoke at the same time all at once. Ryu waved his hand in front of their faces, shaking his head to get the papers off his face and took it with his free hand, glaring at the papers through half-lidded eyes and at his friends that couldn't stop talking.

"For god's _fucking_ sake—_shut the fuck up_!" Ryu shouted loudly and furiously—and wow if that wasn't the first time he actually lost control of what he's doing and actually cursed out loud at his _friends_—effectively shut them up, but still making him feeling guilty for getting his frustration out at them. He took a deep breath, mumbling a "sorry" softly at them and opened his door wider, inviting them in with a nod of his head and a low "come inside" that they mistook as "killing inside" and backed away slowly, giving him a terrified looks and started showering him with apologies. Ryu shook his head and chewed on his bottom lip, saying "'s okay, just come inside already," and added an "I'm sorry too" as an afterthought, since it was partly his fault for shouting at them like that. They exchanged nervous glances, and then those idiotic wide grins were back on their faces in a flash and they energetically skipped into his room like a pair of married rabbits. Sighing, he closed the door and tiredly followed them into the living room next to his own bedroom.

His apartment was pretty huge with a lot of spaces; both the wall and the ceiling was painted white, there was a large light-brown colored carpet that big enough to cover the entire floor of the living room, and not so shockingly, there wasn't much furniture that you could find in either the living room _and_ the bedroom that it looked empty, but still elegant nonetheless, with Ryu's perfect choices of colors and styles for the furniture, though there were mostly _monochrome_, brown and silver. There was a black TV-Flat in front of a long white couch and a black coffee table, two long stereos on each side of the TV, four small lamps planted on the wall on each corner of the room, a black square dining table with four chairs (two black, two white) that surrounded it, and lastly, the long white curtains that were covering the large transparent window on the opposite side of the wall nearby the door.

Tsuchi and Hyuuga immediately bounced onto his couch and started laughing and talking about him as if he wasn't there, and he knew that it's supposed to annoy him, but Ryu just smiled softly and went to the kitchen to get both of them drinks. Somehow, he was glad that he didn't argue too much with his parents about getting him an apartment on his own since he became a teacher, because despite all those horrible things that they've done to him, they still loved him far too much and definitely wouldn't let him go if he were to choose staying inside a run-down or just a plain simple apartment. Well, the question was, how did they get his address anyway? And moreover, did they _really_ have to visit him at—what time was it? Looking down at his wrist, he frowned when he saw that it was twelve-forty already. Sighing, Ryu picked up three glasses of soda from his kitchen and went back to the living room, putting the glass down on the coffee table and sat down beside Hyuuga.

"So, what do you guys want to tell me? Speak one at a time," he said as he took a sip from his own glass, rubbing his temple to get rid of his headache and winced slightly when he felt the liquid made small explosions in his mouth, especially on his tongue. Hyuuga grabbed both of his shoulder and turned him around to face him, a huge grin on his face.

"We heard that you're going to teach at Akadou with Yankumi, right?" Hyuuga asked him while shaking his shoulders, and he saw Tsuchi jumped on his couch with his boots on from the corner of his eyes.

"At the same time, we just happened to get promoted at our jobs too you know? Right?" his ears buzzed when Tsuchi shouted in excitement, and his headache just gotten more painful with Hyuuga shaking his shoulders like that.

"Right! We told Yankumi about that and she invited us to have a party at her house!" now _that_ was interesting. Ryu grabbed his friend's hands and took them off his shoulder, closing his eyes and sighed. It was rare for her to invite her students to a party, well, maybe because they're not underage anymore, and most of them already knew about the secret of her, being the granddaughter of a yakuza family master anyway. He shrugged, ruffling his hair a little and leaned his head on the couch.

"You could have told me on the phone, you know," he laughed softly and looked at them with amused expression. "There's no need for you to come all the way here for just that."

"We know but, this is special occasion you know! And the party was on Saturday night so—"

"Ryu didn't pick up our calls too! We also tried to contact Hayato, but he's really busy—"

"Takeda was trying to reach you too you know! But he said something about this time being late—"

"So we came to your apartment before it's too late like Take said!"

Ryu laughed. Bad habit hard to die, he guessed. Even though he didn't really want to experience the same thing like he did with his current colleagues that night, seeing the face of her former teacher and his high school friends wouldn't be such a bad idea; and if they were to get buzzed in the party, they could sleep in her house, since it's extremely _huge_ and she wouldn't mind it anyway.

"I will come. It's on Saturday, right?"

Both Hyuuga and Tsuchi jumped on his couch again (staining the white silk of his couch, not like he cared though), cheering and shouting and high-five's with each other.

Unfortunately, none of them would have guessed that the party that was previously going to be held at Yankumi's house was moved into a certain ramen shop—and it wouldn't be with just them and their former teacher, but also her current students plus graduates from two other schools—and worse came to worst, poor Odagiri Ryu would also have never thought that he would be sent into the hospital on that same Saturday night.

* * *

><p>At that very same night, and at that very same hour, the main household of the infamous Oedo Family was in a chaos. Despite the extremely late hour (it was one o'clock in the morning, for god's sake), the members were all in a very hyper and energetic mood, running around the house while carrying chairs and tables, some colorful ribbons and new tablecloths, bottles of sake and champagnes and any alcohol-related drinks, and one of them even brought a fresh big fish over his shoulder as he paraded proudly into the kitchen. There were one or two people missing out of the picture though—obviously the master and leader of the Oedo himself, Kuroda Ryuichiro, who appeared to be sleeping peacefully in his room that was located far away from the main room, and the non-official-leader, Yamaguchi Kumiko, who slept rather anxiously inside her room on the second floor—which could be counted as neither a good thing or a bad thing.<p>

The decorations were set formally in _heian_-period style; the usual sliding doors were replaced with soft-brown sakura-patterned ones, several weapons like _katana_ and _wakizashi_ plus some paintings of _Heian-kyō_-related were hanging on the walls. On the corner of the room, stood four of Oedo's most famous _yakuza_ members, Tetsu, Minoru, Wakamatsu, and Sugawara, who were watching with face full of happiness as the other members worked their assess off for the party. It really wasn't one hell of a fair deal for any of them, but if this were going to make the Lady happy and considered taking over the family, then they would gladly do something like this every day. What they didn't know though, that the Lady herself didn't know a single thing about this expensive preparations.

So, when one of the younger members of the clan walked nearby the stairs of the Lady's room, singing "We will make _oujou_ happy, and changing her mind to take over the clan" in a voice that not louder than the horns of a truck but _close_, it wasn't really his fault on telling the entire story to the Lady, who finally snapped after hearing his oh-so-_beautiful_ voice. It wasn't really his fault either, that the Lady walked slowly into the living room with her pajamas, emitting dangerous and _murderous_ aura all over her body, and upon seeing what she _never_ wanted to see in the living room, she commanded every single person to _leave and scram_, back to their respective room, except for four of the so-called most trustworthy people in the clan, who immediately sat down in a line beside the _kotatsu_ with their heads down. The Lady sat on the other side of the table, giving them death glares all the while as she _politely_ asked them _"what the fuck's going on"_ with a low and threatening voice, and they explained to her properly, one by one, as calm as they could, so they wouldn't making the Lady angrier than she already was.

After their long explanation, the Lady went into complete silence as she processed their words in her mind slowly, her arms crossed over her chest, her lips pursed into a thin line and her eyes closed tight. She thought of something that could describe what she was feeling right now—proud, yes, happy and flattered, absolutely, but there was a mix of anger and irritation that came along with those positive emotions of hers as well. She knew how much they loved her and done so many things to please her, but there were some things that she couldn't just tolerate, like for them to forget that _'not all of her students already knew about her secret'_ or how the party on Saturday was just going to be a very _simple celebration_ party, and that there's no need to rebuilt the living room into a totally different room that didn't have any 'normal' atmosphere anymore.

Sighing, she opened both of her eyes and gave each of them a stern and firm stare, raising her chin slightly and puffed up her chest, giving off the atmosphere of authority as she spoke.

"Now listen to me, you little pricks. Like I've told you for, three hundred and fifty seventh times already, this is just a _simple_ celebration party! If you assholes couldn't get even that even after the three hundred and fifty seventh times—what do you think would happen to our society? You idiots should stop and listen to every fucking word I'm saying sometimes, and I am _not_ going to take over the clan!"

"But, oujo—"

"No buts! I haven't even finished talking and yet you—"

"What the hell is going on here?" a low husky voice growled lazily outside the door, a chill ran down her spines as she recognized the owner of the voice and she froze automatically. Somehow, it had always been that way when he was near here, even when he was hiding his presence so perfectly that even the best ninja would get jealous, she could easily tell that he was there, watching and listening to her and his friends in silent like he's some kind of a spy.

A loud yawn could be heard as the door slide open, revealing a tall raven-haired man in a silver yukata. Her lips parted slightly to say something, but nothing came out (or more like, she couldn't produce a single sound at all) and she closed it again, while her eyes travelled from his black hair that shone under the moon light, his half-lidded eyes, his wet lips, down his neck and stopped at his bare chest. He must have tossed around too much in his sleep, because the yukata could barely cover anything from his waist up, she thought with innocent eyes that also filled with confusion and annoyance. How did he end up _here_ of all places? She didn't even know that he was coming home from Africa after all these years—but what confused her even further was the fact that he was _here_, inside _her grandfather's house_, wearing the yukata that _belonged to their house_, and was bringing _their_ white pillow underneath his arm pit.

She turned her head ever so slowly (and frustration built up inside her entire being, when she suddenly felt sad and hesitated to turn her eyes off him), the air around her had changed into a completely new level of demonic atmosphere and the four men ducked behind their seats, looking at the man that just stepped into the room with wide pleading eyes, which the man returned by raising one of his eyebrows up at them questioningly. It's a good thing that the Lady didn't see their secret signs to each other; maybe because her eyes were already blurred from fury and pure anger, her face were as red as tomatoes, and her lips trembled as she tried to get her emotion under control. This however, didn't go unnoticed by the man who walked into the room so carelessly and clueless, and he mocked her without thinking of what would happen to his body afterward.

"What's with that face? You look like you could explode at any moment. Is that how a woman look when she's angry? You're so not sexy, Yankumi." The words came out of his mouth naturally, like he had spoken to her in the same calm and careless manners for many years (and maybe they did), and she just stared at him wide-eyed and jaw-dropped, completely dumbstruck by him along with the others.

How dare did he make fun of someone's older than him, his _former teacher_ at that? Oh god. This night couldn't get any worse than it already was, could it?

Before things could get out of hands—which wasn't totally impossible, seeing from the furious expression on the one that seemed to be the strongest person in the room, the Lady herself—another party popped out from the behind of the sliding door slowly, a soft yawn came from his dry lips and his tired eyes scanned the room carefully. His black-silver hair was a mess; one of his hands were hidden underneath the long sleeves of his yukata, and he was trying to keep himself stable using the long brown wooden that was held firmly with his free hand. Kuroda Ryuichiro, the leader of the current generation of the Oedo family, as well as the Lady's one and only relative, raised a questioning brow at the scene before him.

"What in the hell is going on here?"

And there came the long endless explanation of the preparation and stuff like, how they wanted to please the Lady by making the best party in her life in order to get her take over the family, or how it might please her to hide one of her former and most favorite student inside the house without her knowledge as a surprise later on, and how _sorry_ they were for doing this kind of thing without permission from either one of them.

Apparently this former and so-called 'most favorite' student of hers had been trying to contact her for countless of times that morning from Africa, but she never picked up because she left her cell phone at home, and seeing that the others were very bothered by the tone of her phone, one of their younger members that were working nearby her room took the phone and handed it over to the leader, Ryuichiro-sama, who wasn't very busy at that time. They didn't talk much, since the student himself went straight to the point about him, needing a place to stay for at least three nights before he could get an apartment on his own and asked the older man if he could lend a room for him for two nights. Without a pause or the slightest bit of hesitation, Ryuichiro replied with a loud bright _"Yes of course!"_ and told the others to prepare the room for him soon after. He didn't tell his grand-daughter because he thought that the others already told her and that the student greeted her already, but recently found out that he slept through the entire afternoon until he heard the shouts outside his door, effectively waking him up.

The Lady—who was called as "Yankumi" by the free-loader student—listened patiently and silently to their story without cutting in, watching the four suspects intently with her dark-glaring eyes as they spoke and frowned every now and then, along with the other two men.

After they finished explaining, the four of them bowed their heads down with extremely saddened faces, refusing to meet the Lady eyes' and the room went eerily silent. None of them spoke for a very long time; the student was too tired to speak and kept yawning through the entire story, the old man just closed his eyes with thoughtful expression (though it appeared he might've been sleeping all along), while the Lady just kept her poker face on, but her eyes still filled with fury and anger.

"So that explains how Sawada got into here but," she said, shifting her gaze from Minoru, who sat at the left end to Wakamatsu, who sat at the right end beside her grandfather and finished her sentence in low voice; "It doesn't explain about what the fuck was happening here before I arrived."

Sawada Shin, the student that happened to be the main-character of the previous story looked up from the table at the mention of his name, staring straight at the smooth pale skin of his former teacher and put a small sly smile on his face, and being the sharp and powerful like she was, she didn't miss his reaction and sent an ice-melting glare at his direction, making him more amused than before, much to her dismay. Yankumi looked away from him and at the four yakuza again, repeating her question once again with a bit more force in her voice and tried to keep her poker face perfectly in place.

He knew that she was acting, trying to look tough and angry by their actions but was actually very irritated and frustrated at him for not telling her about his conditions. It was clearly written all over her face like an opened book to him; he knew her far too well to know that, and the fact that _he_ was the only one that could understand her like this made him more than happy, that his smile had unconsciously gotten wider.

She didn't miss it this time too, and unfortunately, none of them missed the sudden change of happiness on his face that didn't match the tense and dangerous atmosphere at all.

"Hoy, Sawada! What the hell are you laug—"

"Let them off the hook." Shin cut her off, smiling ever so softly at her flustered face and surprised eyes when she heard him speak (it's either because she _loved_ his voice so much that she became like that, or that she was surprised that he _actually_ ordered her around). Afraid that he might offend her and hurt her pride too far, he thought of apologizing to her, but dismissed that thought completely when she became angrier.

"What do you m—"

"Like I said, you should let them off the hook…" he repeated more clearly this time, putting his elbows on the cold table surface and rested his chin on his palms with the same sly smile on his face. "At least for today, 'cause I'm here." He added as an afterthought, his eyes twinkled in amusement at her shocked and speechless reactions and he stood up, stretching both of his arms up and left the room without saying any more words.

And thus, the night ended with a rather odd and satisfying result that no one would've expected it would be (because when it's with Yankumi, pretty much everything usually finished in a bloody violent physical fight).

* * *

><p>"I'm still not really sure about this, guys…" Ren Kazama trailed off as he and five of his friends stared up in awe at the large classic-style <em>house<em> where his high-school teacher lived in, along with some scary-looking yakuza members and the leader as her family. He didn't exactly know why, but no matter how many times he and the others visited her on their day-off from works and college, they were still amazed at how unbelievably huge the size and how elegantly well-made each and every detail of her house were, including various of fresh plants and trees on the yards that looked just _perfect_ simply by being there, like they were meant to be, and the only theory they could came up with was that she had her own personal Freddy as a gardener, or that they enslaved some deep-in-shit people that owed them a lot for the trouble they caused. They knew that there's no way in hell that their teacher was someone that could do those kind of horrible things, but it was impossible for them to think of anything _nice_ and _legal_ because of the fact that she lived with a bunch of dangerous guys like the yakuza, and anything could happen when it came to the passionate hot-headed teacher filled with strong sense of justice teacher like Yamaguchi Kumiko.

Sure, she never, _couldn't_ acted like a normal teacher before (she tried countless of times before of course, but unfortunately most of her students that consisted of spoiled brats that labeled as 'delinquents' by the society didn't reciprocate her efforts and told her to be herself, so she decided to give up and taught with her own slightly old-fashioned and _childish_ teaching methods) because of her circumstances and sometimes-violent-behavior, but this and that were two completely different things, and just because she's violent, didn't mean that she was the kind of person that would knock down everyone she disliked at first sight and wiped the floor with them... at least without a warning firsthand, and _that_ should be counted as something. Those thugs on the street would immediately beat up a man straight on his face if they didn't like him or refused to give them what they wanted, so she wasn't really all that bad, right?

"Maybe we should… rehearse more and came back when we're actually prepared for something like… this." Kamiya Shunsuke, who stood next to Ren and Honjo, spoke nervously in agreement, forcing a small smile to hide the fear and hesitation on his face. He'd never been a good actor, so it was kind of expected when his attempt failed rather miserably and ignored by the others, but it wasn't like he agreed to this plan either, so if something were to go _horribly_ wrong, he could runaway as far as possible and none of his friends would blame him for it because let's face it; you _don't_ want to make someone like Yankumi angry. No matter how 'normal' she claimed herself to be, she could easily slaughter the seven of them using a single plastic ruler as her weapon and wouldn't get into the jail, since the laws didn't apply to her due to the connections she and her family had, and erasing the evidences that would lead people to her wasn't a hard task for them to do, you know.

They all nodded at the same at his offer, Ren included, and turned their backs away from the front gate when Yamato stopped them with a simple 'wait'.

"The due is tomorrow Ren, and I'm sure that you wouldn't find _a lot_ of girls that would be willing to be your girlfriend for a day—without really high payment, at least." Yamato explained calmly as he looked at them before staring at the gate again, adding "This is our best and last chance," to make it much more convincing and easier for them. They took a long deep breath, looking at each other meaningfully then nodded.

"Okay, fine. Let's do this, once and for all." Ren said, the long sleeves of his black duffel coat slid upward as he shrugged both of his elbows and took three confident steps toward the gate, his hands reached the wooden surface and he looked down, chanting some kind of spells like a mad scientist, taking another load of oxygen into his lungs and looked at the gate with more confidence than ever in his eyes. He prayed one more time (had he _ever_ mentioned that he's not the type to _pray_?), but before he could even push the double-doors open, two energetic voices chattered happily from the other side of the doors—one in which recognized _far too easily_ and so goddamned familiar in his ears that he couldn't get it out of his head, while the other was simply unrecognizable but definitely a man's voice—getting closer to where he was standing at as he tried to eavesdrop their conversation, but to no success.

He didn't realize that they were so close to him by the time they pulled the double-doors opened, and Ren froze wide-eyed at the scenes before him.

This must be some kind of _really_ cruel jokes, right? Because there was no way even in his beloved parents' dear graves that Yankumi, _the_ unattractive and so not sexy Yankumi, could be talking to an extremely good looking guy that could make every single man in the earth jealous of his looks (he was talking about his looks _and nothing else_. Not for the facts that both of them stood so close to each other like an old married couple, or how their shoulders _brushed_ against each other when they walked, or those stupid _fucking smiles_ on their faces when they spoke to each other. She was his teacher for god's sake, so it definitely wasn't that). He must be another one of her old students, like that time when they mistook Odagiri Ryu as her lover but was actually one of the delinquents she used to teach like, five years ago. Yeah, that must be the case alright.

It did annoy him though, when they walked pass by him without saying anything like he's not even there and kept talking and talking like there's no tomorrow; she didn't even _look_ at the others who were frozen in the same state of shock just like he was. Okay, so perhaps this was far too much even for them to handle. They weren't ready for this, physically and mentally, because it's _Yankumi_ we're talking about here after all, not some normal beautiful adult _female_ in a short skirt, not that they actually wanted to see her legs though. The jeans did an exceptionally _good_ job on making them and her back side looked nicer than when she was wearing her jerseys.

None of them spoke as they watched the couple walked away casually while talking without noticing them at all, and they blinked, rubbing their eyes hard to confirm that they were hallucinating and didn't actually _see_ it, and that Yankumi was still inside the house, probably marking those math papers while listening to the songs in her iPod or texting someone with her phone or something like that._ But then_, she had always been the odd one, the one that was impossible to fully understand what she was thinking at the heat of moment and would go as far as fighting with a bunch of gangster for the sake of her students, something that no other teachers would ever do.

Ren's jaw dropped open, trying to get his voice out of his throat, but the only thing that he could manage was a loud "Ah" that caught the couple attentions immediately.

Yankumi was the first one to stop dead on her tracks, then the handsome male beside her, and then they turned around together simultaneously to face them. The facial expression on her face was that of a pleasant surprise, while the looks that the male gave them was that of confusion as she approached them with a wide grin on her face.

"Ahh, you guys! What are you doing here?" she asked cheerfully and ran toward Yamato, ruffling his hair then proceeded to the next one, until she stopped in front of Ren and tipped on her toes to touch his hair, but he caught her wrist and stepped back.

"What the—"

"Woah, Kazama you're so tall! And you've gotten more handsome than before too!" the male that was talking with her looked taken aback by her words, raising one of his perfect eyebrows at her questioningly.

A heavy awkward silence fell upon them that Ren didn't even dare to speak, and the only one that hadn't realized the awkwardness of the situation was Yankumi herself. She blinked twice, clueless and innocently, turning back and forth between her former students before asking in a low voice; "Did something happen?"

And then they were back into the house before they knew it.

* * *

><p>"So shortly, you made a bet with your beautiful onee-san's life on the line, and came for me to help." Yankumi stated for the twenty-third time since the moment the conversation started. From the corner of her eye, she could see one of the best former student she ever had, Sawada Shin, clad in black sleeveless jacket, white shirt, and dark-colored jeans, sat far away behind her with a small pout on his face, showing how pissed he was at her for cancelling their <em>date<em> (she refused _twice_ that early morning, reasoning that because he's her _student_ and it was _wrong_ for her to do so, but somehow, he managed to get her out of the house using his trademark smirk, patient, and an excellent comeback at her reasons), which was a _very_ hard task to get her giving him a chance first before rejecting him. And now, all hope was gone, _thanks to her students_, who also appeared to be in some kind of a big trouble, and the only thing that could solve that god-knew-what-problem was for her to go on a date with that tall black-haired _boy_ (he was technically seven years older than him).

Out of all the seven males, it seemed that Yamato was the only one that could sense the murderous intensity aura that came from the handsome man that accompanied his former teacher earlier. Who was that guy, and what was his relationship with Yankumi, anyway? These two questions popped in his mind as he thought of possibilities—like him being her _boyfriend_, but let's remove it from the list for how _impossible_ it was, because he's far too good looking and seemed younger than her, or maybe one of her long distance family relations who came for a visit—_that_ was a reasonable excuse. There's no way she could have a hot boyfriend at that age with that looks, right? Of course there's no way. He knew her more than anyone, so there's just _no_ way.

"Well, if I just have to pretend to be your lover for a day, that won't be a problem I guess but," Yamato and Shin shifted their full attentions to her again as she continued. "Odagiri, Tsuchiya, Takeda and Hyuuga are coming over today, so they could help decorating the place for a party tomorrow. I don't think I will be having plenty of time for you guys too." They all looked downward in disappointment, and even though they didn't show it, she knew how important it was to them, especially Kazama. Before she could stop herself, the muscles around her cheeks and her lips moved on their own accord.

"But uhh, they will understand! I think, but don't worry! I'll definitely save your sister from that beast!"

"Oi—"

"Sawada, shut up."

A loud sigh of irritation accidentally escaped his lips, and then he was glaring at her, for the first time since… ten years ago, and her heart suddenly felt like it was being stabbed by knives twice. She didn't like that feeling at all. Was it guilt? Maybe it was, because she did feel guilty before, when she knocked down some of those gangsters and stuff, but the feelings she had at that moment were a thousand times worse than the usual guilt.

"Do whatever you like," he spat the words like venom before storming out of the room, anger could be seen in his eyes when he left, and her heart sank to the bottom of her stomach. Ren and the others looked at him in surprise and the same guilt—well, maybe not actually _the same_ with what she felt inside, but they looked like they felt guilty once they turned their attention to her again.

"Um, maybe we could just—"

"Stop it, alright?" she cut him off shortly before they could finish their sentences, raising her fist above her head and looked at them straight in the eyes with confidence. "Let's do this and kick that piece of shit square in the ass!"

* * *

><p>Ryu thought of going back to his apartment and prepared some tea for himself the moment she told him about her plans.<p>

"No."

"No way."

"Uh-uh."

"Freaking hell, no."

Were the positive responses that his friends gave her when she finished talking in that cheerful-easy going-oh so innocent tone; even her face remained innocent, like a little kid talking to her parents, when it's actually the opposite. He felt like slapping his face with a fried chicken wing.

"Besides, it's _our_ celebration party for getting jobs and promoted and stuff, so why the hell do we have to do it at Kumai-san's?" Hyuuga asked flatly, but irritation lingered in his voice as he did. He wasn't the only one, apparently.

"But, if we celebrate it at Kuma's, our sense of solidarity will arise once more!"

She had a point.

"Plus, he would give us free unlimited sakes."

And before Ryu could even give a proper response, he was being dragged away by his friends toward the ramen shop.

* * *

><p>The date went unexpectedly fine, actually, that they couldn't believe their own eyes. The moron who challenged Ren brought two dates—both in which were still in High School—and the fact that Ren managed to bring someone that was, at least ten or twelve years older than him made him win the whole thing in five minutes. It was an easy win, one might say. So easy that both participants couldn't believe what <em>clearly<em> just happened in front of their own eyes and stunned on their position beside each other, as the enemy left the ramen shop with girls in each hand, angry curses and face so red that he looked more like a walking tomato than a human being.

"Wait, what?"

"I can't believe it."

"So he just, walked out of here like they were _actually_ dating? That's impossible!" Honjo shouted in pure shock and something between amusement and confusion.

"Well, for short, yeah. I just came in with Yankumi—and we didn't even _touch_ each other, I tell you—"Ren quickly added, looking back and forth at Shin and Ryu whose faces were _priceless_, and continued; "then I tell him that Yankumi's my girlfriend. We've been together for a year, and that I'll buy her an engagement ring if I got the money, that's all." He finished and practically shoved an entire bowl of ramen into his mouth hungrily; his cheeks blushed for some unknown reason.

"But, just that, seriously? I mean, you must've done something that could convince him so easily like that." Kamiya spoke, unsure with the story his friend just told him, but since he saw the whole thing outside the shop by the window, he couldn't say that he didn't believe it. What they said was the truth.

"Well, we kissed you see, so he pretty much believe the whole shit." Yankumi replied flatly, and then shouted her order like nothing happened. "Kuma, two bowls over here for Tsuchiyama and Sawada!"

"I see. So you two kissed—EH?"

"WAIT, WHAT? KISSED?"

Shin choked on his ramen, Yamato and Kuraki fell from their seats, and Odagiri slipped on something that made him fall hard on his back. The two seemed uncomfortably calm though, which somehow became uncomfortably awkward as well.

"Like, lips-kiss or cheeks-kiss?" Hyuuga questioned quickly, Ichimura shot up from his seat with a confused and shocked expression, while the rest couldn't recover from their shock at all.

"Obviously the lips-kiss of course, what else?" the teacher answered his question with the same, flat tone and emotionless face, seemingly unbothered with the fact that she just _kissed_ one of her former students on the lips.

"If I kissed her on the cheeks, he wouldn't believe a scratch. Besides, why did you guys come anyway? He became suspicious when Honjo stuck his head too out in the open, and we had to cover for you, you know?" Ren added just as calm and got up from his seat with the empty bowl, ordering another bowl of ramen to Kuma, who's completely unresponsive to anything anymore the moment he heard 'lips-kiss' out of his teacher's mouth.

And then—remember the prologue where I opened this story with a bang? Well, it started right here; with just a little accident that happened so fast that Flash would be jealous.

As Odagiri pulled himself back together and stood up, Yankumi got off from her seat as well and put her empty bowl on the counter while Ren went back, his shoulder brushed against her upper arm, something that none of the students missed, but both parties seemed to pay no attention to it.

"They _kissed_, they _touched_, and now it's a normal thing for them!"

"What should we do?"

"This is Fate's fault! I know that Balthazar should've killed them before the Father noticed"

"I don't understand what you're saying, but this _is_ bad!"

While the Kurogin graduates whispered to each other in not-so-secret way, Shin walked up to the counter like a zombie, both of his eyes and expression were dead, and he took the two new bowls on the counter beside the empty ones, _just_ so that he would look like he didn't give a damn about the fact that the source of his love and affection kissed someone else, someone else _younger_ than him.

He didn't notice that he stepped on Odagiri's shoelaces until the man fell forward.

"Woah—"

Shin avoided him and took three steps back, while at the same time, Yankumi who stood behind Shin before, was turning around, her lips parted slightly to say something that began with "tako", but she couldn't finish it when another lips—dry and thin, covered her full glossy one, their teeth clashed indirectly, drawing some blood from their inner lips. None of them actually cared about the damn blood though; what they cared was when the brunette shot his hands out in reflex, one grabbed her waist, while the other landed on her breast.

_Oh-oh_.

"Uhm… guys…" Tsuchiyama spoke slowly, and then—

"My teacher's going to kill me!"

"I'm going to get _killed_!"

"Someone, call the _okami_!"

"Yankumi's going on a rampage!"

"Kumai-san, run away!"

And then, as what we predicted to happen, an ambulance arrived in front of the ramen shop eighteen-twenty minutes later, carrying three used-to-be-handsome men into the car and brought them to the hospital. While the media said that it was an accident that the chef's youngest son played with the frying pans and hit them with it, the public and students knew better that someone _totally_ beat them up, but it had already been taken care of when a man dressed in Hawaiian clothes and sunglasses gave a black suitcase to the police officers around the area.

And so, Yankumi went back home with a scowl on her face, and everyone lived happily ever after.

…

…

…

Except for those three in the hospital of course. They're not, living happily ever after in the hospital.

* * *

><p>Word count: 9606<p>

Aaaaannnnddd, that's that! Finished! I will fix this later if it's not 3.11 AM in the morning anymore. Leave a review, please, please, please?


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